Roberts court unanimous for Mo. prisoner abortion
By Allen Palmeri
Staff Writer
October 18, 2005
JEFFERSON CITY– A federal judge who attempted to make law expanding abortion rights in Missouri Oct. 13-15 was checked by three Missouri officials – including two Missouri Baptists – and a United States Supreme Court justice, only to be ultimately validated in an Oct. 17 decision by the full court.
It marked the first pro-life test for the new Supreme Court under new Chief Justice John Roberts, and the Roberts-led justices voted unanimously to uphold the 1973 decision of Roe v. Wade as the so-called “settled” law of the land.
U.S. District Judge Dean Whipple had tried to order the staff of Missouri Department of Corrections Director Larry Crawford, who is a member of Friendship Baptist Church, California, to transport a prisoner to St. Louis for an abortion. Crawford was appointed to his position by Gov. Matt Blunt, whose home church is Second Baptist, Springfield, and together they held firm on state policy. The third Missouri official, Attorney General Jay Nixon, defended state law to the point where Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas blocked Whipple’s order with a temporary stay.
“Courts have required that all women be provided access to elective abortions but have not required states to provide payment for such procedures,” said Kerry Messer, lobbyist, Missouri Baptist Convention Christian Life Commission. “Missouri law explicitly prohibits taxpayer-funded abortion services. Gov. Blunt and Director Crawford have determined that transportation and security costs, provided by the Department of Corrections, associated with otherwise privately funded abortions for prison inmates still constitute a violation of our statutory ban on public funding for elective abortions.”
State Sen. Chuck Gross, R-St. Charles, questioned Judge Whipple’s reliance on Roe v. Wade and the so-called constitutional right to an abortion as opposed to the “right” to have an elective surgery. Messer agreed, stating that the abortion industry would love to use this case as a battering ram to create a crack in the state’s prohibition against public funding of abortions.
Judge Whipple argued that “while a state may express its public policy, it may not create undue burdens upon a woman’s exercise of her right to choose, and may not prohibit the exercise of that right or place substantial obstacles in the way of the exercise of that right.” The governor, in a statement, called those words absurd. “This is an outrageous order from an activist federal judge that offends Missouri values,” Blunt said.
State Sen. John Loudon, R-Ballwin, said he is fed up with federal judges like Whipple and U.S. District Judge Nanette K. Laughrey trying – and in Whipple’s case, succeeding – to act like legislators. “If they want to make laws, they need to take off the robes and run for office,” Loudon said.
Judges like Whipple and Laughrey, who is blocking a new pro-life law in Missouri, continue to work within the morally corrupt conditions described in Isaiah 5:20, when evil is called good, and good is called evil.
Missouri corrections officials now must drive the woman prisoner, at taxpayer expense, to a Planned Parenthood clinic for an abortion. The department said it will comply.